https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study from McMaster University involving 2.8 million children around the world has revealed the most important early-life factors that influence whether a child becomes allergic to food. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-food-allergies-early-life-factors.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:40:06 EST news689857834 A new study, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, is leading to a new understanding of how immune cells can influence adult neurogenesis, the process of creating new neurons in the brain. Neurons are the brain's fundamental information messengers, and the immune cells conduct surveillance and send messages to new neurons. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-immune-cells-adult-brain-generation.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:23:50 EST news689876582 A significant discovery by Case Western Reserve University researchers could change how doctors treat two of the most devastating neurodegenerative diseases. The team identified a link between gut bacteria and the deterioration of the brain in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). The researchers discovered that certain bacterial sugars cause immune responses that kill cells—and how to prevent it. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-gut-brain-discovery-bacterial-sugar.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:00:03 EST news689869543 Heart disease affects women differently than men, and understanding those differences can be lifesaving. Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and leading expert in the field of women's heart health, says progress in research, treatment and prevention has accelerated but women still need better information. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-video-cardiologist-discusses-heart-disease.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 11:23:03 EST news689858521 Cells from cancerous tumors can spread, or metastasize, throughout the body. Researchers have long sought to understand what determines where those cells will go and thrive in order to more effectively treat the cancer and prevent metastasis. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) have now identified biological markers for a rare, aggressive eye cancer that predict the likelihood of secondary tumors forming in the liver. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-eye-cancer-genes-predetermine-liver.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:59:52 EST news689853541 A simple brain-training exercise could reduce people's risk of developing dementia by 25%, a study said Monday, but with outside researchers expressing caution in interpreting the results. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-focused-brain-dementia-years.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 08:47:35 EST news689849132 GLP-1 drugs have ushered in a new era in weight loss. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-youve-weight-loss-goal-glp.html Sat, 07 Feb 2026 14:30:01 EST news689518515 When UNSW Associate Professor Shafagh Waters explains cystic fibrosis (CF) to the children she works with, she asks them to imagine what is happening inside their own bodies. "I tell them to picture an airport," she says. "There's a gate at the surface of every cell. It's meant to open so water and salts can flow through—just like planes leaving a gate. In cystic fibrosis, that gate might be stuck closed, built in the wrong place, or it could be so unstable that it falls apart as soon as it forms." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-tiny-mini-grown-children-cells.html Fri, 06 Feb 2026 08:43:37 EST news689589781 Fewer stillbirths and reduced perinatal mortality are the key findings of the first analysis of the Safer Baby Bundle, Australia's national stillbirth prevention program. The Safer Baby Bundle is a set of evidence-based clinical guidelines and educational resources developed by the Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth for clinicians and pregnant women to help prevent the tragedy of stillbirth. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-australia-stillbirth.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:00:01 EST news689527909 Statins do not cause the majority of the conditions that have been listed in their package leaflets, including memory loss, depression, sleep disturbance, and erectile and sexual dysfunction, according to the most comprehensive review of possible side effects. The study was led by researchers at Oxford Population Health and appears in The Lancet. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-statins-majority-side-effects-package.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 18:30:01 EST news689529002 More than 30 million people with HIV must take antiretroviral therapy (ART) medications daily to keep the virus under control, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The drugs are effective but don't eliminate the virus; HIV remains hidden in "reservoirs" throughout the body, ready to reactivate if treatment stops. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-hiv-hidden-reservoirs-lab-natural.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:55:44 EST news689525701 One of the biggest hurdles in developing an HIV vaccine is coaxing the body to produce the right kind of immune cells and antibodies. In most vaccines, HIV proteins are attached to a larger protein scaffolding that mimics a virus. Then, a person's immune system produces a range of antibodies that recognize different bits of those proteins. Often, however, some of those antibodies react not to HIV itself, but to the scaffold used to deliver the vaccine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-invisible-vaccine-scaffolding-boosts-hiv.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:00:11 EST news689444942 A team of researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center discovered an innovative way to use a drug already approved for treating irregular heartbeat to selectively target specific functions of enzymes in lymphoma, effectively killing cancer cells and reducing tumor growth with little to no toxicity. Recent findings published in Pharmacological Research set the groundwork for how this strategy could help transform the future of precision medicine in cancer. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-arrhythmia-drug-myc-driven-lymphoma.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 07:00:08 EST news689488631 In a high-income setting, maternal anemia and relative erythrocytosis are associated with severe neonatal morbidity and mortality (SNM-M), according to a study published online Feb. 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-maternal-anemia-erythrocytosis-linked-neonatal.html Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:50:02 EST news689431499 How to reduce suffering in children with advanced cancer remains an ongoing but urgent question. A Mass General Brigham-led study has examined whether systematically surveying children with advanced cancer and their parents about their symptoms and quality of life, providing feedback to children, families, and clinicians—and acting on that information by implementing personalized palliative care—could improve patients' experiences. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-personalized-palliative-quality-life-children.html Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:47:42 EST news689446021 A key molecular mechanism drives the growth of liver cell cancer while simultaneously suppressing the body's immune response to the tumor. This has been published in the journal Nature by a team led by researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the University Hospital of Tübingen, and the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California. However, the results also show that this very mechanism could help identify patients who respond particularly well to immunotherapy in the future, thus opening up new therapeutic approaches. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-edged-sword-chronic-cellular-stress.html Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:00:10 EST news689319721 A major global review has revealed critical gaps in how heart attacks in women are diagnosed and treated—particularly for premenopausal women. The American Heart Association (AHA) today released a new scientific statement led by Australian cardiologist Professor Jason Kovacic, warning current clinical practices may be costing women their lives. The statement is published in the journal Circulation. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-guidance-urges-faster-diagnosis-women.html Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:00:05 EST news689421202 One person's waste could be another's shot at fighting cancer. The idea may sound far-fetched, but it is gaining momentum in cancer care. Researchers are testing fecal microbiota transplants as a way of changing the gut's microbes. This could help treatments, such as immunotherapy, work better, and it could be especially significant for hard-to-reach cancers. These fecal microbiota could also help deliver longer-lasting benefits for more patients. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-fecal-transplants-cancer.html Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:20:02 EST news689411303 Talk therapy is the best way to ease grief and depression following the death of a loved one, a new evidence review has concluded. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-grief-therapy-evidence.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 19:40:01 EST news689326530 A collaborative team of researchers and students from Wayne State University's Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, School of Medicine, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Institute of Gerontology have studied the impact of a backward walking program on individuals with multiple sclerosis. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-results-mobility-decrease-falls-multiple.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:07:58 EST news689357221 A large U.S. study suggests that older adults hospitalized with delirium may experience better outcomes when treated with trazodone, commonly used to treat depression and sleep problems, rather than commonly used antipsychotic medications. Delirium, a sudden state of confusion that often affects older adults during or after hospitalization, is frequently treated with medications despite limited evidence about which drugs are safest. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-medication-linked-safer-outcomes-antipsychotics.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:34:49 EST news689348041 Managing type 2 diabetes is a demanding daily task involving diet, exercise, and often a complex regimen of medications. For patients facing financial hardship, the cost of these life-saving drugs can become a barrier to health, leading many to skip doses or delay refills. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-diabetes-disadvantaged-communities-significantly-financial.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 11:44:34 EST news689341441 Metastasis-directed therapy (MDT) significantly improved outcomes in patients with oligometastatic prostate cancer, according to a new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center published in The Lancet Oncology. The study is a first-of-its-kind meta-analysis of individual patients across all available randomized clinical trials evaluating the addition of metastasis-directed radiation therapy to standard-of-care treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-strong-evidence-effectiveness-metastasis-therapy.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:30:51 EST news689337001 Life-saving antibiotics that could treat severe infections in babies and children aren't accessible due to a lack of data around safety and dosage, new research shows. Two wide sweeping reviews, led by Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and the Australasian KIDS DOSE consortium, have discovered the barriers children are experiencing in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands when accessing treatment for the antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections deemed the highest priority by the World Health Organization. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-clinical-gaps-life-antibiotics-children.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:28:03 EST news689333221 A study of more than 500 people living with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their caregivers, co-led by researchers at Mass General Brigham, found that survey participants viewed the ability to regain basic communication as the minimum acceptable outcome after severe brain injury. The study, published in Critical Care Medicine, shows that many individuals living with TBIs consider outcomes involving significant disability to be acceptable. These results challenge longstanding assumptions by TBI researchers and providers about what constitutes a "favorable" outcome after a severe brain injury, and should inform future care discussions and clinical trials, according to the authors. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-people-traumatic-brain-injury-caregivers.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:16:38 EST news689332561 Gout, a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by a buildup of uric acid (urate) in the body, affects 5.1% of U.S. adults (over 12 million), including 10% of those aged 65 or older. Urate is produced by the body when breaking down compounds called purines and normally dissolves in the blood, but when levels are high, they can precipitate out as monosodium urate crystals which can deposit in the joints. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-glucose-lowering-sglt2i-drugs-patients.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 07:30:07 EST news689325843 Scientists at The Wistar Institute have developed an HIV vaccine candidate that achieves something never before observed in the field: inducing neutralizing antibodies against HIV after a single immunization in nonhuman primates. The innovative approach, published in Nature Immunology, could significantly shorten and simplify HIV vaccination protocols, making them more accessible worldwide. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-shot-hiv-vaccine-candidate-neutralizing.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:36:51 EST news689322961 A patient with complete blindness caused by irreversible optic nerve damage partially recovered natural vision after participating in a clinical trial of electrical stimulation of the visual cortex conducted by researchers from the Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (UMH) and the CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). The unexpected improvement was spontaneous, sustained over time, and independent of the implanted device. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-unexpected-partial-recovery-natural-vision.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 02:30:01 EST news689275382 An international research consortium, led by scientists at VIB and UGent, has developed a new platform that could change how antibody medicines are tested and brought to patients. The work, published in Science Immunology, highlights problems during conventional antibody drug testing and introduces a next-generation mouse model that makes it possible to predict the effects of antibody drugs in humans more accurately. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-reliable-platform-antibody-medicines.html Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:30:31 EST news689272202 Technology created at the University of Queensland could improve the odds of surviving brain cancer and change how we treat a range of neurological conditions. Dr. Richard Lobb and Dr. Zhen Zhang from UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have opened a "window to the brain" with a new diagnostic device that can tell how deadly brain tumors respond to treatment from a simple blood test. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-window-brain-chip-tracks-glioblastoma.html Mon, 02 Feb 2026 12:17:19 EST news689256945